A Fishy End

Chapter 14

Michael followed Jessica down the street, shouting at Jacob to stay close. He never understood why Jessica insisted on being involved with neighbourhood stuff. He could think of a million things he'd rather be doing on this one night off.

Across the street he could see the Blackmans heading to the festivities as well. Their son Skylar had experienced an allergic reaction a couple years back, and Michael had met them in the ER. He had no clue who the boy running next to Skylar was, or who the middle-aged woman who greeted Jessica was.

It was always like that. Jessica teased him about it sometimes. He could meet somebody a dozen times socially and still not recall their names, but he could remember every detail of their medical history if he'd met them professionally.

Jessica fell in beside the middle-aged woman as they rounded the corner. He gathered from the snatches of the conversation that her name was Lydia and that she had one child.

"Daughter?" Jessica asked.

"Yes, daughter," Lydia replied, lifting her chin. "Zoey came out as transgender this winter."

"I'm sorry. Has that been a rough transition for you?" Jessica asked.

"I love my child," Lydia snapped. "And I really wish people would stop apologising. She's wonderful, boy or girl, and I'm very proud of her."

"I'm sorry," Jessica said again. "I didn't mean to offend it's just I, I know how most people would react to a child coming out. It's really wonderful that you are so accepting. Is she here?"

Lydia shook her head no. "She's not feeling well today." A troubled look crossed her face.

Just then a crow cawed loudly. Michael looked up just in time to see it land upon the upper porch of the house on the corner. A figure appeared briefly in the window of the upper-story bedroom. Michael glimpsed red hair and a pinched, scowling face, and then it was gone.

They had reached the house where the barbecue was being held, just as a military Humvee pulled up to the barricades at the end of the block. Four people climbed out of the Humvee, three men and one woman. The crowd cheered as they approached.

Michael shook his head as he took in the homecoming and festivities. Outsiders who had never been to the Midwest were always surprised by how diverse Des Moines really was. And this party showed that. A young man with a military cut had run to his young wife for a hug and kiss as soon as he climbed out of the Humvee. And the woman had run to her wife.

Beside them, a middle-aged Indian man hugged his wife. The last man, little more than a boy, fist-bumped another his age. Michael recognized the two vaguely as the college kids that lived next door.

Next to the Iowa tradition of brats and burgers and Dontaye's pulled pork was Sarah Harrish's tikka masala chicken. Jessica was trying the Paleo diet, and she had brought a salad of beans and green. Lydia, not surprisingly, was a strict vegetarian, and she had brought goat cheese, "from my pygmy dairy goats, to go with her freshly baked bread.

Not that Iowa was a liberal utopia by any stretch of the imagination. The soldier's wife looked none too pleased to have to share her romantic homecoming with two lesbians. The kids, more honest than the parents, turned their nose up at the sight of "weird foods." When Lydia mentioned Zoey's name, the soldier's wife snapped at her husband, "She means Devon."

Michael found a plate of food and stood to one side of the table with two men. He knew Justin, who was a cop, from work and Justin introduced Jack as a retired cop.

"Cherie, I'm glad you could make it. And a fruit salad, lovely," Jack said to a heavyset woman with scraggly, brown hair as she passed by. Michael looked at the gelatinous blob in the dish and wondered how Jack had managed to be so generous in his praise. "Your husband?" There was something in Jack's tone that made Michael think Jack didn't think much of the husband.